Travels in India (Tavernier) 34.1.3

34.1.3

The English President demanding satisfaction for this insult, strife began to kindle between the two nations, and would have ruined all the trade of the country if the merchants on both sides had not set themselves to arrange the affair, knowing nothing of the vile plot which some individuals were weaving to catch Father Ephraim. But all the goings and comings of these merchants availed nothing, and by the intrigues of the Portuguese ecclesiastics, it was so managed that the Father got mixed up in the matter, became the mediator, and undertook to conduct the negotiations between both sides—a part which he very readily undertook. But he had no sooner entered St. Thomé than he was seized by ten or twelve officers of the Inquisition, who placed him in a small armed frigate, which at once set sail for Goa. They put irons on his feet and hands, and they were twenty-two days at sea without once permitting him to land, although the majority of those on the frigate slept on shore nearly every night, because they sail from place to place along these coasts. When they arrived at Goa, they waited till dark to land Father Ephraim and conduct him to the house of the Inquisition, for they feared lest by landing him in the daytime the people might have wind of it, and might come to release a person so venerated in all that part of India.